The Donald Trump media feeding-frenzy is in full flow. But beyond all the fun stuff about the horse-race and the insults, have there been any really good articles explaining the Trump phenomenon? I have found two recent pieces particularly interesting. Thomas Edsall explains how – “The economic basis for voter anger has been building for over 40 years” – and has some interesting numbers on the stagnation of real wages, the shrinking of the middle-class, the disappearance of manufacturing jobs and the impact of Chinese accession to the WTO.

Another good analysis, this time on the Vox site, looks at the kinds of people who are attracted to Trump’s rhetoric – and in particular at political scientists’ work on the rise of authoritarian attitudes in America. Apparently, people’s attitudes to parenting are a good predictor of their attitudes to Trump. Those who value obedience in children, above all, are “authoritarian” types, who also like Trump. But there are also is a large group of people with “latent authoritarianism”, which is aroused when they feel under threat.

If you prefer full-throated condemnation to analysis, may I recommend this speech by Mitt Romney. It got covered a lot when it was made on Thursday, but it is worth reading in full. I suspect historians may judge that the speech was made several months too late. I also liked Robert Kagan’s eloquent condemnation of Trump in the Washington Post.

Donald Trump seems to desperately wish he could fire Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for having called him a “moron.” But by now it’s clear that Trump doesn’t have the guts to do it, either because he’s at his politically weakest point in general, or because Tillerson is a personal friend of Vladimir Putin. Regardless of the reason, Tillerson is now flaunting the fact that he apparently can’t be fired. Based on what Tillerson did on Sunday, we’re about to see Trump’s biggest meltdown about him to date.

For reasons known only to him, instead of laying low until “Morongate” blows over, Rex Tillerson decided to appear on CNN State of the Union on Sunday morning. He knew full well that he’d be asked yet again whether or not he really called Trump a moron. Sure enough, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked him the question. Tillerson once again refused to answer – which at this point is an absolute confirmation that he did call him a moron.

Trump has long had insecurities about his intellect. His poorly written and phonetically misspelled tweets suggest that he suffers from some sort of mild learning disability, which may drive his insecurities on the matter, even though learning disabilities are not counter-indicative to intellect. It’s not shocking that Trump responded to the “moron” insult by publicly calling for himself and Tillerson to take IQ tests.

Donald Trump watches the Sunday morning shows, at least when his own people are on, so he saw Rex Tillerson’s interview. He saw Tillerson once again refusing to deny that he called Trump a moron. That’ll be enough to set Trump off yet again, with a round of angry tweets about Tillerson on Monday – or perhaps not til Tuesday, if some other grievance distracts him. But we’re looking at the (supposed) President of the United States publicly attacking his own Secretary of State yet again.

I DO NOT LIKE YOU, FACEBOOK! You are cheap, pretentious, primitive, and mediocre, just like the majority of your customers. Like “faces”, like “books”, like “posts”, like the uniform mentality of your everywhere-nowhere “friends”. Somewhere between the kindergarten and the institution for the mentally challenged. Not only its current COO, but the Facebook itself is … Continue reading “I DO NOT LIKE YOU, FACEBOOK! “

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, says people were worried about hacking and not election interference before 2016.

But that’s not true. Hillary Clinton and others were warning about Russia’s disinformation campaign as far back as 2011.

Facebook needs to stop talking about what it didn’t do for years and start talking about what it will do from today.In a live interview with the news website Axios on Thursday, Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, lamented that the company hadn’t found out about Russia’s use of the platform to spread disinformation and propaganda before the 2016 US elections.

“We were looking at this certainly not as early as we would have liked to, because we wish we had found it before it ever happened,” Sandberg said.

“If you think about 2015, 2016,” she later added, “the threats most people were worried about were hacking, taking down accounts, getting into your email account and sharing all of it.”

Oh.

Perhaps hacking is what users were worried about, but in national security and press circles, the idea of a Russian information war against the US had been gaining steam since 2011. TV channels like Russia Today and websites like Sputnik have long been unapologetic about towing the Kremlin line – about the fact that they are pushing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s will.

By 2015, Russian propaganda was all over Facebook in forms both formal and informal, and the platform had already helped Russia wreak havoc around the world, especially in Ukraine.

Connecting the dots that Russia may have a plan for the US presidential election would require one to pay attention. So let’s say Facebook wasn’t. That’s gross negligence. To ignore that the people purchasing space on Facebook were pushing lies and distortions, on the other hand, is beyond that – it’s willful ignorance and a stunning display of greed.

They’ll tell you

I know that we’re in an information war with Russia because I asked.

Back in 2015, as an adjunct professor at Columbia’s journalism school, I hosted staffers from RT, and they were very frank about their mission. They informed us that from 2008, when the US was critical of Russia’s annexation of a piece of Georgia, their aim was to show the world that the US was a flawed nation that’s inferior to Russia.

Take a quick look at the topics RT consistently used to prove its anti-American point and you might as well be at a buffet serving Facebook’s garbage media diet from the election. Going back as far as 2011, RT was playing on US racial tensions and shrilly accusing Hillary Clinton of warmongering and criminality.

I say 2011 because that’s when Clinton, then secretary of state, testified before Congress about Russia’s information war against the US. The Kremlin knew she was watching, and so the Kremlin went to war against her. No one who paid attention to this interaction was shocked that Putin favored Donald Trump in 2016.

But again, you had to be paying attention. Or you had to keep paying attention. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Congress again addressed the matter of Russian propaganda in testimony. The former RT journalist Liz Wahl explained how the Kremlin manipulated social media, and it might sound familiar to anyone in the US now.

“Russian media provides a home for a spectrum of political beliefs as long as they are skeptical of the political establishment. While some of the theories peddled are outright absurd, there are a surprising amount of people prone to being manipulated that think it’s hip to believe in any alternative theory, feeling proud of perceiving themselves to be enlightened and even prouder when they amass sizable social media followers that hang on every misguided and outright false theory that is propagated. Russia is aware of this population of paranoid skeptics and plays them like a fiddle.“

Sound familiar? Maybe it reminds you of a few arguments you had with Facebook-addicted family members over the holidays in 2016.

Another witness, Peter Pomeratsev, a journalist who spent years working in Russian television, was even more explicit mentioning Facebook by name.

“The Kremlin… funds ‘troll farms,’ regime-funded companies which hire people to spread messages on social media, using Facebook, Twitter, newspaper comment sections and many other spaces. Through these networks, Russia propagates conspiracy theories, disinformation and fake news…. Their aim was [is] not so much to persuade a potential viewer of any one version, but to trash the information space with so much disinformation so that a conversation based on actual facts would become impossible.”

Pomeratsev wrote a book about his time working in Russia called “Nothing is Real and Everything is Possible” – about how Russia became a fact-less nation. America now knows what he was talking about, but it’s something Facebook should’ve known before we had to find out.

No one wants to hear it, Sheryl

Facebook says it didn’t have an inkling of what was going on before the election, but we know that it knew the Kremlin’s agents were bullying Ukrainian activists, at the very least. Were Sandberg and Zuckerberg simply so naive they didn’t think that Putin would turn his eye on his most fearsome enemy?

Or were they just so greedy they didn’t care?

In the Axios interview, most of Sandberg’s comments were backward-looking and so, in a word, worthless. The 2018 elections are coming, and the far right has not tried to disguise its affinity for the Kremlin line. Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News is known for spreading its share of fact-melting misinformation that sounds as if it’s straight from the RT newsroom.

And – for so-called anti-globalists – Bannon has shown a willingness to collaborate with other international Putin-philes like the UK’s Nigel Farage and Hungary’s far right. Make no mistake: What they all have in common is not only “nationalism” but also a belief in Putin’s political system – fascism.

Opposing this and stamping it out shouldn’t be a question for Facebook. This isn’t a gray area. This an American value. We are not fascists. Millions of people around the world died not too long ago to reaffirm that. What Facebook (and Twitter and Google) has done – ignoring the spread of fascism, lies, and anti-American propaganda in the digital space – is a disgusting display of moral relativism and intellectual laziness that Silicon Valley has revealed it can wear as easily as a pair of Tevas and some cargo shorts.

We don’t want to hear about what Facebook missed. We want to hear that Facebook will not allow the agents of a fascist movement to continue to manipulate it as a distribution platform. We want to hear how attempts by these agents to engage the platform will be vetted and reported to the US government.

Iraqi army and Kurdish troops are in a standoff in Kirkuk, a city located in the Kurdistan region, which voted for independence from Iraq last month. Kirkuk holds 10 percent of Iraq’s oil reserves. Washington Post reporter Loveday Morris, who is covering the standoff, joins Hari Sreenivasan via Skype from Baghdad.

Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu thanked US President Donald Trump for his decision to deny Iran certification that it is complying with the JCPOA nuclear deal, speaking in Jerusalem, Saturday. Speaking about the nuclear deal, Netanyahu termed it as ‘tremendous danger for our collective future’. READ MORE: https://on.rt.com/8pr8

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Congressional investigators are homing in on the connections between the 2016 presidential election and social-media giants Facebook and Twitter , a nexus that put Brad Parscale in charge of millions.

Brad Parscale was the Trump campaign’s digital director and his San Antonio company was its highest-paid vendor. Giles-Parscale drew nearly $88 million for about 18 months of work, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures, on top of an additional $4 million since Election Day, which included millions paid to Facebook and other social-media companies. As digital director, Mr. Parscale was responsible for creating and placing ads on social-media platforms such as Facebook, developing the campaign’s website and driving online fundraising efforts.

In July, Mr. Parscale agreed to an interview with the House Intelligence Committee, but later that month the panel postponed it. The committee hasn’t yet set a new date, and, according to a person familiar with the matter, Mr. Parscale hasn’t been contacted by the Senate Intelligence Committee or special counsel Robert Mueller, who, in addition to the congressional panels, is conducting a criminal probe into whether the Trump campaign and its associates colluded with Moscow.

Mr. Trump has denied any collusion by him or any associates, and Russia has said it didn’t meddle in the election.

Mr. Parscale denies any collusion with Moscow. “I am unaware of any Russian involvement in the digital and data operations of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign,” he said in a July statement.

Mr. Parscale’s work was prolific. The campaign tested 40,000 to 60,000 Facebook ads every day, according to a person familiar with the spending. A senior GOP campaign aide said the team would start each day with 70 ads in each target state, such as Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and buy new ads every five minutes, based on what was successful on a range of metrics. Peak days reached nearly 200,000 unique ad combinations, the person said.

The extent of the Trump digital operation’s activity was largely unreported because there are no federal disclosure requirements for online ads. Unlike when they air television and radio ads, campaigns running online ads aren’t required to disclose how much they paid for the ads, whom they paid and where the ads would run.

Now, lawmakers and Mr. Mueller want to know what role activity on Facebook and Twitter played in the election interference, and whether any Russian social-media activity was connected to the Trump campaign. Facebook has estimated that 10 million people saw ads on its website that were paid for by Russia. Mr. Mueller received copies of Russia-backed Facebook ads last month.

“This was a data crime that occurred, carried out at least by Russia, possibly with cooperation with Trump campaign officials, so any Trump campaign official that worked on data, I think, would be relevant to talk to,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.), a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Spokesmen for Facebook and Twitter have said they are looking to bolster transparency and toughen safeguards against improper use of their platforms.

Facebook is set to participate in public hearings on Nov. 1 held by the House and Senate Intelligence committees. Twitter and Google will take part in the Senate hearing.

The House panel also has contacted Cambridge Analytica, a data analytics company paid $5 million by the Trump campaign last year that worked together with Mr. Parscale’s firm, for information related to the Russia probe, a Cambridge Analytica spokesman said.

The House panel referred questions to the company, whose spokesman said it would fully cooperate with the probe but added that Cambridge Analytica itself isn’t under investigation. “There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by the company,” he said.

The White House referred questions to Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign, which declined to comment.

While broadcast stations are required to disclose to the Federal Communications Commission how much they earn from political campaigns and groups and where those dollars are directed, social-media companies don’t have to disclose what share of their advertising revenue comes from political ads.

Facebook has turned over the Russia-backed ads to congressional investigators and the House Intelligence Committee has said it will make them public soon. Facebook said in a statement earlier this month that it is “building new tools” that would allow users to see ads run by a specific individual or group, even if those ads aren’t targeted to that particular user.

Steven Passwaiter, vice president at Kantar Media/CMAG, which tracks political advertising, said his firm is planning to track digital ads for the first time this year, but won’t be able to include ads on social-media platforms such as Facebook, the primary platform used by the Trump campaign.

“Facebook is a walled garden,” said Mr. Passwaiter. “You really don’t get the ability to look in.”

Candidates have traditionally spent the bulk of their advertising money on television, which is considered more effective in reaching mass audiences. Through late October 2016, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton spent about $140 million on TV ads to Mr. Trump’s $60 million.

The Trump campaign devoted nearly half of its advertising spending to digital ads, according to the person familiar with the spending, much of it for Facebook ads, which helped the campaign and the Republican National Committee build a network of small donors that raised about $250 million in small-dollar donations.

By Election Day, the Trump campaign had spent about $70 million in advertising on Facebook, according to the person familiar with the spending.

“Facebook was the most significant way for the GOP to prospect to find donors,” Mr. Parscale said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal this week. “It’s a tool which allows you to find people who are supporters easier so you can get them into your campaign.”

Overseeing his efforts was Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law who now serves as a senior White House adviser. Mr. Kushner was interviewed by the Senate Intelligence Committee in July. Mr. Kushner has denied colluding with Russia.

A person familiar with the effort said Mr. Kushner wasn’t involved in the day-to-day work of running digital advertising. Instead, Mr. Parscale would keep him apprised of the budget and of which voters the campaign was planning to target, the person said.

Much of the money paid to Mr. Parscale was dispersed to social-media platforms to pay for the advertising, as well as to at least one other vendor: Sprinklr, a social-media management service that allows companies to scale up their online presence.

Every vendor that worked with Mr. Parscale on the campaign signed a nondisclosure agreement, according to the person familiar with the spending, and didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The Trump ads Mr. Parscale purchased on Facebook were largely focused on fundraising, showing users images of Mr. Trump or his family while asking them to donate, said the person. Images and videos of Mr. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, were targeted to mothers. Some contained cartoons attacking Hillary Clinton as corrupt. The campaign also used Facebook to draw large crowds to Mr. Trump’s campaign rallies, the person said.

Images and videos were tested in battleground locations, comparing results by gender and in rural areas and urban areas using a range of metrics. If small ad buys on certain targets performed well, the campaign purchased more, the person said.

The Facebook ads typically bring in fairly small donations and Mr. Parscale’s low rate of financial return on them drew him criticism from both Democrats and Republicans, who questioned the effectiveness of his ads. In response, Mr. Parscale pointed to the high number of small-dollar donors the campaign was attracting.

“Fundraising small dollars literally followed two days ahead of poll data,” Mr. Parscale said of donations raked in through Facebook ads, speaking at a panel hosted by Google in December. “People would vote with their wallets.”

The link between Crime, Terrorism, and Migration is very real!

“Washington Post”, get rid of your obvious and misleading liberal bias and face the truth. There is no doubt, in my very humble opinion, that in the present circumstances the borders (all of them, physical and virtual) have to be strengthened. “Wall or no wall”, this country has to protect itself from this pre-orchestrated, planned, hostile “invasion”. This issue, in a long term perspective, affects the demographic composition, and, inevitably, the mind, the soul, and the essence of this country. The comprehensive immigration reform is needed to bring the order and sanity into this system. It is a bipartisan issue. The best way to deal with it is to assist the future migrants at the places where they already are, be it their own or the third countries, and to help them with the adjustment and making the rational and orderly plans for emigration or non-emigration. It will also be much more efficient, including the comparative costs of the prospective interventions vs. non-interventions options for the migrants’ assistance.

In its present state, the dysfunctional US Immigration system does breed crime and definitely linked to it, the courtesy of the various Intelligence Services, among the other factors, the terrorist activity.

Do the methodologically correct studies to reveal these connections!

It is also difficult not to see the larger and the deliberate design (I wish I would know, by whom) which can be described by this imaginary phrase: “You, Americans, deal with your own problems at your southern borders, and we will make sure that you continue having these problems; and we: the Germans, the New Abwehr, the Russians, the “Europeans” will deal with our own problems at our southern borders, which includes the Middle East, Syria, Afghanistan”, etc., etc. Very straightforward and clear, almost German in its artificial simplicity and squareness, design. The Strasbourg attack was the latest demonstration of the “Terrorism – Crime – Migration Nexus“, as it was aptly described and defined.

The recent events (US withdrawal from Syria , (even if largely symbolic but telling: “А вас тута не стояло“), and the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan confirm this line of thought further. “Theories of a crime-terror nexus are well established in the literature. Often conceptualized along a continuum, relationships between organisations range from contracting services and the appropriation of tactics, to complete mergers or even role changes. Recent irregular migrant movements have added to the nexus, providing financial opportunities to criminal enterprises and creating grievances and heated debate that has fueled the anger of ideological groups.” This pattern is reported for Europe but there should not be any significant reasons to believe that this constellation of forces and factors and their dynamics are any different in the Western hemisphere. The Statistics should help to clarify the issues, not to obscure them. And the reporters might be tempted to spin the numbers into any direction they want, just like anyone else. Let the specialists, including the statisticians, comment on these matters. The incompleteness and narrowness of the press reports like the one linked above only throws more oil into the flames and allows if not justifies the Trump’s criticism of his press coverage as the “Fake News & totally dishonest Media” and the “crazed lunatics who have given up on the TRUTH!”. (What a horrible crime! Right out of the mouth of The TRUTH Teller In Chief!)As far as “the enemy of the people”, this might be the more debatable attribution. So far. (The New Abwehr’s control of the Global Mass Media notwithstanding.)

Exploring the Nexus in Europe and Southeast Asia by Cameron Sumpter and Joseph Franco Abstract Theories of a crime-terror nexus are well established in the literature. Often conceptualised along a continuum, relationships between organisations range from contracting services and the appropriation of tactics, to complete mergers or even role changes. Recent irregular migrant movements have added to the nexus, providing financial opportunities to criminal enterprises and creating grievances and heated debate that has fuelled the anger of ideological groups. In Europe, terrorist organisations have worked with and sometimes emulated organised crime syndicates through involvement in the trafficking of drugs, people, weapons and antiquities. In Southeast Asia, conflict areas provide the backdrop for cross-border drug trafficking and kidnap-for-ransom activities, while extremist groups both commit crimes for profit and target criminals for recruitment. Keywords: Crime-Terror nexus, organised crime, terrorism, migration, Europe, Southeast Asia –“Fake News & totally dishonest Media concerning me and my presidency has never been worse,” Trump said in the first of the tweets. “Many have become crazed lunatics who have given up on the TRUTH!”

Virtual Institute For Studies In Political Criminology, Political Psychology, And Psychohistory | The Operation Trump and The New Abwehr: A Study In Psychohistory by Michael Novakhov, M.D.: Web Research, Reviews, Analysis, and Opinions | Web Publishing International Inc.